I’m guessing between Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, and iCloud, most people have their cloud storage needs fulfilled. However, that hasn’t stopped competing cloud storage services from cropping up. Copy is the latest to join the fray.

Copy is a new cloud storage service by Barracude Networks, a company networking hardware. Available on the web at Copy.com and on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS vis-a-vis programs and apps, Copy is trying to make inroads into the cloud storage market by offering lucrative free storage to users. Every new user of Copy receives 5 GB of free storage. Anyone that is willing to tweet about Copy.com gets another 2 GB. And if you refer someone to Copy (i.e. someone signs up for Copy via your referral link), you get an extra 5 GB and the person signing up gets an extra 5 GB (meaning the other person starts with 10 GB instead of 5 GB).

It isn’t clear if there is a limit on the amount of free storage you can receive via referrals or not. Presumably you can get an unlimited amount of free storage via referrals and you receive free 5 GB for every person you refer. However, unfortunately, Copy’s homepage is quite barren on facts regarding the service, so I cannot say for sure.

Aside from lack of detail regarding referral bonuses, Copy also doesn’t explicitly explain if and how files stored on the service are encrypted or not. Also it is unclear if Copy has file size limits or not, with the website only caring to declare: “Email attachments have size limitations. Copy doesn’t.”

(Note: Regardless of if Copy itself encrypts files or not, you should always encrypt important files yourself that you plan on storing on cloud storage services. See dotTech’s article on 3 free programs to easily encrypt files on cloud storage[2]. Those programs will work with Copy since Copy’s desktop programs create a storage folder.)

A new cloud storage service that isn’t very clear about aspects that people would consider critical? Eh, not a good start even if it is backed by a seasoned company.

In any case, aside from free storage, there are two other selling points to Copy:

Firstly, if you are able and willing to pay for cloud storage, Copy has one of the cheapest rates around: $9.99 a month or $99 a year for 250 GB. Compare that to $9.99/$99 for 100 GB on Dropbox, $50 a year for 100 GB on SkyDrive, and $9.99 a month for 200 GB on Google Drive.

Secondly, Copy is focused on sharing. It allows users to easily share files with others by generating public URLs that anyone can visit, by sharing private URLs that can only be visited by people you send them to, and by controlling if shared files can be viewed only or also synced and edited.

If you are interested in Copy, hit up the link below (yes, it is my referral link) to sign up and get started with 10 5 GB of free storage. Also feel free to post your referral link in the comments below; who knows, maybe someone will use it.